


Nightmares

by ClaireKat



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alien!Keith, Galra Keith, Galra!Keith, Gen, One Shot, alien keith, galra homeworld, platonic paladins - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-14
Updated: 2016-07-14
Packaged: 2018-07-23 21:14:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,091
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7480269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClaireKat/pseuds/ClaireKat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Keith finds himself caught up in an all too real nightmare that leaves him questioning its foreboding meaning.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nightmares

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first time writing for the Voltron fandom, so please be gentle with me. Keith is my favorite character and Galra/Alien Keith is my very favorite theory. This is just me dipping my toes into the waters of trying to write something for him! This is a platonic piece with ZERO romantic intention, so as the artist I ask that you please respect my wishes and don't interpret the work that way, thank you!

Ornate walls and tall ceilings crowded the boy currently standing amidst them. Their decorations were foreign yet familiar, and he trailed his fingers along their intricate textures as he paced down the seemingly endless corridor. An overwhelming sense of nostalgia flooded his heart with pangs of longing and regret. There was something so unusual about this place, with its thick, damp, and suffocating atmosphere. Before too long the Paladin began to panic. He couldn’t tell if his lungs were filling up with air or a heavier, possibly harmful substance. He didn’t appreciate the phenomenon; all he could seem to focus on was escape.

  
The scenery shifted as the floor beneath the boy’s feet suddenly turned to a viscous liquid, plunging him into its dark watery depths. He flailed and gasped and fought against the abyss threatening to swallow him, but for all his effort he was a slave to the liquid’s current. Before too long his limbs grew weak and he succumbed to fatigue, acquiescing to the current and the darkness. An eternity seemed to pass as the boy floated along, weightlessly suspended in the inky nothingness. The terrifying quiet that enveloped him shattered in an instant as another  force yanked him from the liquid and tossed him like a ragdoll across rough, unyielding earth.

  
The world the boy observed now, as he struggled to regain his breath, was vast and dark and beautiful. Stunning in its own right, the boy thought as he scraped his knees against jagged stone and pushed himself to his feet. A gentle breeze mussed up his hair as he gazed upon the breathless landscape. Deep indigo valleys spread into staggering mountains and the sky was dense with grey clouds that rhythmically danced with orange lightning. The only scars on the land appeared to be rivers of glowing molten lava, flowing from a few leaking volcanos which crowned the distant mountain peaks. The boy realized that the breeze he felt dancing around him was tinged with a warmth no doubt created by the planet’s geothermic features.

  
Why did this feel so natural, so real to him? Something about this place -- the sights, sounds, and even smells that now enveloped him -- they were so close yet so distant. He couldn’t pinpoint what it was about this place that made him yearn to stay, but trying to analyze it started to give him a headache. He rubbed his eyes and ran his hands through his dark hair, his breath trembling as he drug his feet against the rocky ground beneath him. Despite the desolate appearance of this planet, something in his mind told him that its inhabitants thrived. He cupped his hands over his heart, feeling tears race down his cheeks and leave damp trails, expressing an emotion he couldn’t even comprehend.

  
“Keith, time to come inside.”

  
The boy turned around, the tears coming on stronger as he faced the form of a creature whose face was blurred out, almost as if it was enveloped in a haze of static. The name that this new being spoke...it was certainly the boy’s name. He recognized it, it felt right, it felt true…and somehow, so did the voice that spoke it. But with the being’s face still obscured, there was no way Keith was going to get any direct answers as to who they were or why their voice stirred another indecipherable feeling in his chest. He opened his mouth to question the being, but he couldn’t find his voice. It was as though parts of his body were paralyzed, and he still couldn’t understand any of this. It was frustrating, borderline infuriating, and Keith found himself driven by a need to scream. He needed to hear something, to hear his own voice, to remember why he was here and who he really was…he was just Keith, wasn’t he?

  
He wanted to interrogate the creature in front of him, but he had questions for himself as well. What was this place, how did he get here, why was he here, why did he feel like he belonged here? What did this place have to offer him, why wouldn’t the tears stop flowing? They poured from his eyes in blurry batches as he stared in confusion at the still being before him. They hadn’t spoken since they had beckoned Keith to come inside, but exactly where did they want him to go? Keith lifted his eyes to observe a grand building – could it have been the place he was just inside? – built out of black stone inlaid with strips, columns, and panels of indigo.

  
The scene didn’t stay peaceful for long. By the next blink of his eye, the building Keith faced was engulfed by a wave of darkness and negativity that made all the hairs on his body stand on end. He couldn’t understand; a moment ago he had been blissfully unaware, caught up in the intriguing view of this planet and the mystery of the creature standing before him. Now this great pressure was upon him, ready to whisk him away from the comfort and safety he had gained from this temporary view. He couldn’t leave yet, there was still so much he had to know, still so much that wasn’t answered. Where was his voice, why couldn’t he reach it…what was happening to him?

  
He screamed, trembling, and then took a few uncertain steps towards the blurry faced being. Through the unusual haze he could make out blotches of light purple and glowing yellow…were those their eyes? He continued to act out his noiseless screams until his throat felt raw. Clutching at his chest, he begged in his heart for someone to tell him why he felt so alone, so lost, so confused. The darkness washed down upon him, sweeping him and everything else into oblivion. He kicked and struggled , fighting so hard he could feel his limbs and his soul shaking.

  
Another voice ripped through the darkness, it’s vibrations seeming to shake the very dimension Keith was imprisoned in. He covered his ears, he screamed his soundless screams, but there was nothing he could do to protect himself. The voice pounded on, louder and louder, and Keith felt the uncomfortable sensation of hands grabbing him. They enveloped him, shaking him along with the voice. He gritted his teeth and kicked his feet, but there was nothing to abate the suffocating pressure that imprisoned him. A few more shakes, a few more seconds of breathlessness, and suddenly Keith found himself blinking up at a blank ceiling, a warm body pinning him to what felt like a mattress.

  
His whole body was violently trembling, his face slightly chilly with the lingering dampness of his tears on his cheeks. He gasped and heaved and struggled to get his bearings, closing his eyes and opening them again to be sure that this time things wouldn’t change when he did. He grasped the sheets in his fingers and concentrated on the real, solid feeling of the bed, noticing an ache in his throat as he drew his breaths through an open mouth. He tried to request the person holding him to let him go, but he was too afraid that nothing would come again. He was saturated with fear.

  
“Keith, it’s okay, you’re okay.”

  
This wasn’t the voice that had been speaking to him in his dreams. Keith wanted to sit up. He wanted to move. At least, he thought he did. He was still petrified. The humming sounds of the Castle of Lions helped to bring his heart back into a calmer rhythm, after-burns of the images that felt more like living snapshots playing repeatedly in the back of his mind. He reached his hand around to wipe his forehead, freezing as he recognized the sensation of hair where there shouldn’t be any. 

  
“It’s okay, Keith. You’re going to be okay.”

  
He didn’t want to hear that anymore. He wanted to speak, he wanted to be heard, he wanted to make sense of what was happening to him. Was this still part of the dream? Was his brain really this good at tricking him into perceiving this as reality? He patted the person’s side, trying to communicate to them that they needed to move. The figure obliged by sitting up, but their arms remained around him, lifting him with them. Keith supposed that at least some movement was better than none.

  
“Does this mean that you’re finally awake?”

  
Keith still couldn’t speak. He rested his head on the person’s shoulder, still dazed from the rapid surge of emotions and information that were whirling through his head. He needed to respond. Could he find his voice again? Would he be able to find it here? He stroked his throat, freezing at the uncomfortable feeling of hair again; what was going on with him? Regardless, he knew he must have been making quite a commotion just a few moments before. His throat must have been sore from screaming; his silent screams had translated into loud, violent screams in this reality. If that were the case, the person cradling him now must have been almost as scared as he was…he had been screaming with all his might in that dream world, he could only imagine what kind of sound he produced in this one. 

  
“You’re alright, you’re going to be alright. You don’t have to be afraid, you don’t have anything to worry about. I’m right here. I’m not going to leave you alone.”

  
The figure’s tone was so soft, so gentle, so encouraging. Keith pushed away from them, recognizing in a heartbeat that Shiro was the one that had come to his aid. He gave a tiny smile, only momentarily comforted by his friend’s presence when he realized there was still the matter of the strange hair sensation to deal with. He decided to try speaking again. Perhaps this time he would finally have the resolve to produce some semblance of a voice.  

  
“I’m sorry. I was…having a bad dream. Really bad. Horrible nightmare.” For a moment he was relieved, even if speaking was painful. At least things seemed to be taking a turn for the better. “Did I scream about anything specific? I don’t know what’s happening to me, I don’t know what that was…”

  
“Keith…I think you need to see something. With your own eyes.”

  
Shiro took hold of his friend, supporting him as he guided Keith’s arm over his shoulder. Together they staggered over to the mirror on the other side of the room. When Keith looked into it, the face that stared back at him was the same shade of purple as the figure from his dream, his eyes glowing pupil-less with the same striking yellow hue. If Keith had any screams left in him, they would have ripped his throat apart…luckily, he was spent. Shiro steadied him as Keith’s legs buckled beneath him, catching him before his friend could crumble to the floor. He helped Keith back over to the bed, laying him down before facing him with a sincere, supportive glance.

  
“I’m not sure what you were dreaming of, but whatever it was, it triggered this. I don’t know what it means, I’m sure you don’t either, but…I don’t want you thinking that it’s going to change anything. I know you’re scared, and confused, and after hearing you wail like that I am too. But I don’t want you thinking that you have to go through this alone. I’ll stay here tonight; I don’t want you falling back into whatever that nightmare was and flailing around so much you hurt yourself. I barely got in here in time to keep you from rolling onto the floor, kicking and screaming and fighting like you were. But you’re safe here, and if this…phase…was triggered as a defense mechanism, I want you to know you don’t have anything to fear. You will be protected here, with us. That’s our job as Paladins anyway, isn’t it? To promote peace and protection across the cosmos.”

  
Keith curled onto his side, Shiro’s words of encouragement slightly muffled by his own buzzing thoughts. He felt isolated, endangered, and self-destructive…all of the things Shiro had just spoken against. But then again, Shiro said he was going to stay to ensure that Keith wouldn’t overlook the truth of his words. Perhaps those words, for now, would be enough to stave off the nightmares. Then again…what if they were more than just nightmares?   
  



End file.
